Five Ways To Check In On Your Books

If you do your own bookkeeping, it’s important to double-check your records to make sure everything is correct. Here are five easy and important ways to make sure your books are in order.

1. Do your deposits match?

Your bank account and your books should have the same number. If not, check QuickBooks to make sure your deposits weren’t added on multiple lines. This can happen even if the deposit hasn’t reached the bank yet.

2. Is any income double-recorded?

Obviously we don’t want income recorded twice. Sometimes we have clients mark invoices as paid and move them to Undeposited Funds. After they go to the bank, they record an additional entry for depositing the money, but this is wrong. This double records your income - once in Undeposited Funds and once as a deposit. After you deposit money in the bank from Undeposited Funds, you need to make an entry in QuickBooks moving the money from Undeposited Funds to the bank. This will move the money, not double-record it.

3. Are any credit card transactions double-recorded?

You never want to be charged twice! Mistakes can happen when you allow automatic downloads to record all transactions. That’s why you need to check in. We’ve seen clients record two different transactions when they use their credit card - one payment from the bank to the credit card AND one payment from the credit card to the bank. In result, the money is taken out of the bank twice and the credit card is paid twice.

4. Have your accounts been reconciled?

Reconciling on a regular basis (at least every month) is vital to know what’s going on with your business. This ensures that everything has cleared. Mistakes can happen and reconciling gives you the opportunity to correct them.

5. Have you backed up your books properly?

You should always back up your books after working on them. This should happen on a regular basis, no less than monthly. Otherwise, you could lose all of your data and have nothing. Try using a cloud storage system so you can access your books anywhere, anytime.

If you run into issues or have questions, contact us for expert bookkeeping assistance.